St. Paul Test

I took the St. Paul written test and have no clue how they are gonna score that thing and get the "best applicants". It was all about personality traits, prejudices, and that sort of thing. I think there was about 5 math questions but other than that it was really a strange test. I hope I pass, I did the only thing I could do and that was to answer each question honestly?

Clueless

I'm feeling you on the test as well. I would have thought there would have been more math questions, atleast more than what was there. My mind was about shot from the questions before that anyways. I think it was like the test I took for the Minneapolis airport fire dept.

Basically a personality and opinion test. Which I didn't even get asked to continue on with the hiring process.

I want to know how would you study for that kind of test. I guess I'll wait for another dept to test.

If it is the same as the test in 1999, a score of 75% or better gets you to the physical, and then your score from those two tests is averaged to give your final score, which determines your placement on the list.

First off, there aren't that many full-time departments in the Twin Cities. The full-time departments are:

Minneapolis
St. Paul
MAC (Airport Fire)
Richfield
Burnsville
West St. Paul
South St. Paul

The following departments are primarily full-time, but are combination departments:

Edina
St. Louis Park
Coon Rapids

Finally, these departments are primarily part-time with a small full-time component:

Fridley
Columbia Heights
St. Anthony

Departments that will hire an FF/EMT-B are:

Minneapolis (Not required/open application)
St. Paul
St. Louis Park
Richfield
South St. Paul
West St. Paul

The other departments either require Paramedic (Edina/Burnsville), only hire from their part-time component (Coon Rapids) or I'm not familiar with their hiring practices.

As for the St. Paul test, it sounds like it was the same test as the last go around. I took that test and was offered a job, twice, but I couldn't afford the pay cut from my current full-time fire job. Getting a full-time fire gig in Minnesota is a long, difficult process and my best advice is to test as often as you can. Or, if you're young and don't have too many ties to the area, consider moving to an area of the country that places an emphasis on full-time firefighting.

Coon Rapids hires only from their vollie list. Edina does require FF/medic for their fulltime guys and I believe only FF/EMT for their vollies and they hire from a list of applicants that test. Burnsville also takes applications but only if you are FF/medic.

As for SPFD, I heard that the first class will be about 20-25 or so and maybe 2 more classes after that but of unknown size.